“In the beginning...” (1:1)
The Torah opens, not with an explanation, but with a mystery: “Bereshit bara Elokim et hashamayim ve’et ha’aretz — In the beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth.” The Zohar asks: why “Bereshit” — in the beginning — and not simply “Barah Elokim,” G-d created? The word reshit implies a prior point, before the beginning. The Torah begins, therefore, not at the absolute start of existence, but at the first emergence of order from the Infinite.
This verse does not describe a chronological event but a categorical transition — the moment when what had previously existed only in the Mind of the Creator became capable of being perceived by another. “Bereshit” means the inception of relationship — the possibility of something other than G-d, yet utterly dependent on Him.
Creation, then, is not about the formation of matter; it is about concealment. The Infinite withdraws, so to speak, to allow finitude to exist. Light is hidden so that darkness may have meaning. The tzimtzum, the contraction, is the first kindness: a G-d Who makes space for man.
Yet the Torah does not end its first pasuk with “Bereshit bara Elokim.” It adds “et hashamayim ve’et ha’aretz.” Heaven and earth represent two poles — the spiritual and the physical, the eternal and the temporal — and between them lies the drama of human existence. Man stands at the intersection, a being of earth who yearns for heaven. The goal of life is not to escape one for the other, but to bind them — to bring Heaven down into Earth and raise Earth up toward Heaven.
The very first word of Torah, Bereshit, can be read as bara shith — “He created six,” alluding to the six directions of space, the six dimensions of the finite world. But the Torah’s story begins only to point beyond itself — toward the seventh, the hidden center from which all meaning flows. The world of six can be measured; the world of seven can only be sanctified. That seventh dimension is Shabbat, when creation ceases to conceal and once again reveals its Source.
And so, when man is created — “b’tzelem Elokim” — in the image of G-d, it is not that he resembles his Creator physically or even intellectually, but that he possesses the capacity to ‘make space’, to create within himself a void for the Other — for another human being, and ultimately, for G-d Himself. To be in the image of G-d is to live in imitation of His withdrawal: to step back so that something else may live.
The tragedy of Adam’s sin was not mere disobedience but the collapse of this balance. He sought to seize knowledge rather than receive it. The tree of knowledge was forbidden not because its content was evil, but because timing was everything. Da’at—knowledge—must be preceded by emunah—faith. When man consumes the fruit before he learns reverence, knowledge becomes poison.
Thus the exile from Eden is not punishment but mercy. Man is sent into a world of concealment to rediscover G-d not as an abstract truth but as a Presence veiled within creation. Every act of kindness, every word of Torah, every Shabbat entered, is a step back toward that lost garden — not by reversing time, but by sanctifying it.
“Bereshit” — the point before beginning — remains the key to all beginnings. The world’s story begins only when we recognize that behind every visible start lies the invisible One Who allows beginnings to be.
